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Candy Orange IPA - Hazy Session
We're back with another great session IPA recipe. This one is made with citra and lemon drop hops, as well as orange simple syrup and candied orange peel - all made from scratch. If you're into hazy session IPAs, we highly recommend this recipe. It's a very balanced beer with just the right amount of citrus aroma and taste as well as body and bitterness. And because it's a fairly low ABV beer, it's "highly crushable." In short, it turned out 100% awesome and you should definitely brew it if any of this sounds appealing.
Full Brew Day Video
Brewing Water
We first added 7.9 gallons (29.9 liters) of tap water to our kettle.
Grains
After heating the water to strike temp, we inserted the grain basket in our kettle and added the following grains to the grain basket:
- 2 Row Pilsner (2.0 SRM) - 6lbs (2kg 721.6g)
- Flaked Oats (1.0 SRM) - 1lbs (453.6g)
- Flaked Corn (1.7 SRM) - 1lb (453.6g)
- Flaked Wheat (1.6 SRM) - 1lb (453.6g)
We finely crush all of our grain in a mill before mashing with it
Mashing
We mashed at 160F (71.1C) for 60 mins.
Mashing in
It's important to stir your mash in order to break up any clumps
We mashed at a bit higher temperature than we have in the past for this style of beer. The goal was to increase beta amylase activity, which should boost the amount of unfermentable sugar, giving the beer a bit more sweetness and body.
Citrus Zest
While mashing, we worked on processing some citrus zest. We took the peel from 3 oranges and 1 lemon and blanched them.
We just used a normal peeler to peel our fruit
Here's a quick guide to blanching citrus fruit:
- Add peels to pot of cold water (enough water to cover peels)
Submerging peels in cold water
- Heat water to a boil
- As soon as boil starts, remove from heat, strain peels, and dump water.
Straining peels
- Add more cold water to pot along with strained peels
- Begin process again.
Repeat this entire process 3 times and make sure to remove the pot from the heat and strain the fruit as soon as a boil is reached. This process reduces the bitterness of the fruit. However, if you leave the peels boil, bitterness will actually increase.
Making Candied Citrus Peel
After blanching we moved on to creating candied peels. To do this we made some simple syrup by dissolving 400 grams of sugar in 400 grams of water (a 1 to 1 ratio). We then added the peels and simmered for 45 minutes.
Citrus peels in simple syrup
Citrus peels after 45 minutes of simmering
After that, we put the peels in a food dehydrator and let them sit on low heat for about 24 hours.
Boiling / Hops
We boiled for 60 minutes and added the following hops, etc:
- Citra (0.25 oz) / (7.1g) at 60 minutes (the start of the boil)
Adding Citra hops at the start of the boil
- Citra (3 oz) / (85g) & Lemon Drop (1 oz) / (28.35g) hopstand after completing the boil and cooling the wort below 170F (76.7C).
- Simple Syrup was also added with the hopstand hops.
Adding the simple syrup that was simmered for 45 minutes
Fermentation
After leaving the hopstand hops hang out for 20 minutes, we chilled the wort to 68F (20C) and added it to a sanitized bucket.
Transferring wort to a sanitized bucket
We pitched White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001 and let it ferment for 3 days.
Pitching yeast
After 3 days we added another ounce (28.35g) of citra and an additional ounce of lemon drop hops.
We also added candied orange peel at this time.
Our candied orange peel was dry and stiff after sitting in a food dehydrator for 24 hours
We put all of our dry hops and citrus peels into a mesh bag that was then added to the fermenter
Fermentation kicked off again (because of the sugar in the candied orange peels) and finished a few days later.
Additional Benchmarks
- Starting Gravity: 1.046
- Final Gravity: 1.015
- ABV: 4.07%
Tasting Notes
This beer is one of the best we've brewed. It was super balanced and had a perfect blend of bitterness, hops flavor, and sweetness. The lemon drop hops and orange made for a very pleasant aroma. It tasted like a light citrus IPA, but the orange flavor came through nicely. It was present but not at all overpowering. We really liked the balance of sweet and bitterness as well. We rate this recipe 10/10 and highly recommend brewing it.
Equipment
- We brewed this beer with Clawhammer's 10.5 gallon, 120V Electric Brewing System.
- We used an Excalibur Food Dehydrator to make the candied peels.
- Shallow depth bartender's peeler.
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Hey guys,
I know I’m a little late to the party, but after entering the grain bill along with the 400g of sugar for the simple syrup into Beersmith, and playing around with the water amounts, I can’t understand how you guys got your gravity numbers and ABV so low? 5.5 gal batch size at 70% eff leaves me with 5.5% ABV. Is your efficiency incredibly low or am I missing something? Thanks in advance.
Matt
Hey guys,
There has been no information what so ever about the ammount of orange zest u have used during dry hopping. please let me know.
Greetings from, mighty czech republic, home of the original Pilsner
Hello, I was wondering how much grain would be too much when trying to increase the ABV a bit. I hope to add Enough to make the beer 5% instead of the 4%. Also after the dry hop how long would you recommend fermenting before kegging. The beer sounds amazing and I am looking forward to brewing.
Looks great. Can I get the water profile used please?
Great beer, I can’t find flaked corn on European markets and from what i researched i found that instant grits and corn meal are suitable substitutes, which one do you suggest and can i have the water chemistry for the candy orange ipa?
Thanks, greetings from cyprus!
Hi Folks,
Nice video, makes me keen to brew it my self. Could you provide the water profile to me ?
If known I also would like to know how much fermentable sugars are added by the orange sugar.
Cheers & Greetings from Germany
Nils
HEy Guys
Question : If I put the beer in bottle… Do I need to add sugar to create the gaz… If yes what is the mix water suger do you suggest?
thanks
Water profile please.
Could you send me the water chemistry?
Thanks and have a nice day!
Hi,
Can you please send me the brewsmith profile?
thanks!!
Good morning, I would like to know the water profile that you have used for this beer.
CANDY ORANGE IPA
I would like to get yours water chemistry and Beersmith profiles for this beer!
Many thanks.
Amazing video and recipe. i’m interested in the water chemistry and beersmith profiles, as well as the juicy NEIPA because i’m gonna brew those marvels.
keep up your amazing work and cheers!
greetings from Chile!
Cheers to craft beers !
I would like to get your water chemistry and Beersmith profiles please …. do you have the recipe for 1 gallon batch ? Thank you and cheers from New Jersey
very excited to try this.and also interested in trying the water profile.
I think that a NEIPA water profile would work well here.
Ca >100ppm
Sulfate-Cloride Ratio 1:2 or 1:3
I would like to get yours water chemistry and Beersmith profiles for this beer!
Many thanks.
I would like to get yours water chemistry and Beersmith profiles for this beer!
Many thanks.
I am interested in the beer smith profiles and water chemistry . Sounds like a great beer. Needed a challenging brew.
Hi guys, i would Like this recipe and i was wondering About your water profile,thanks and cheers from argentina.